The Poor Thinkers' Society
by Seahorse von Schweetz
Summary: After disappearing for a year, Éponine comes back to Le Café Musain to discover a passion that she had never thought about.
1. Chapter 1

_June 1830_

Les Amis de l'ABC saw her every day, seating at the bottom of the stairs leading to the second floor of Le Café Musain, trying to blend with the place and failing miserably. She knew that, although she was welcomed, she didn't fit in. Nobody cared to contradict her; they all knew as well.

They all saw her, witnessing how her eyes would lit whenever she saw the subject of her affections. Marius, that freckled and handsome youth that constituted the last addition to the revolutionary group, was the only reason why she would show up at that place and hear speeches she didn't understand about topics that didn't know about.

Yes, they all saw her but nobody, not even Marius, knew her. She was just one of _them_, the kind of people they were trying to help, the ones their revolution, whenever it came, would directly benefit. The group had called her "Marius' shadow" as a reference the way she chased after him like some sort of loyal stray dog. Even if that meant hurting every time he babbled about his wonderful blonde angel, his Cosette, the girl that he was in love with.

Les Amis, Enjolras included, had grown accustomed to her. Sometimes they would give her some food or a few coins, nothing too meaningful for them, which she accepted shamefully.

That was until Marius arrived one day, a few minutes before the daily meeting started, his face contracted with a troubled expression.

"Have you seen Éponine?" he asked while taking a seat. Enjolras, without looking away from his book, answered.

"We haven't seen or met any Éponine or any Cosette or any other wonderful woman you've met in your life...nor we're interested in knowing about them. We've got important things to discuss so please focus," he said dryly.

"The meeting hasn't started yet and you're reading...Shakespeare," Courfeyrac commented, making everyone laugh.

"This is not Shakespeare. It's Don Quixote, my friend," Enjolras replied.

"Cervantes, if I'm not wrong, is the Spanish version of Shakespeare," Courfeyrac teased.

"You're wrong," Enjolras said with certain humor.

"Focus! Éponine's the urchin that's here every night. You know? That petite brunette that seats at the staircase? I haven't seen her in about two weeks."

Everyone stopped what they were doing to look straight at Marius.

"I knew there was someone missing," Joly mumbled.

"Marius...if you don't know, why are we supposed to know?" Combeferre reasoned.

"What do you mean by that?" he asked, visibly confused.

"He means that the urchin's life revolved around walking behind you...like a shadow," Feuilly explained. Marius scratched the back part of his neck.

"If you think she came for the meetings, let me tell you straightaway that you're completely wrong," Enjolras said, trying not to sound half as affected as he truly was. He actually found, much to his embarrassment, that the urchin was quite _cute. _He would eye her from the corner of his eye to find her smiling at some lost thought or maybe playing with a few strands of her hair. He knew whenever she had actually gotten something from whatever he had been saying. He knew that, even if he didn't want to accept it, he wished that those fragments of his speeches swarmed through her head for a little bit longer than Marius did. Enjolras thought she was a mixture between the irrationality of a passionate lover and the determination of a warrior, which made him both pity her and admire her in quite unequal parts.

He squeezed his eyes shut as his friends offered possible solutions for her disappearance, all of them solemn and . All of them were tragic, all of them reminded him of her bruised arms and her bare feet, of the way she would shiver whenever it rained, of the way she seemed so small. And he felt impotence.

"Gentlemen," he said while closing his book, "When our revolution is successful, Éponine's name will never be forgotten."

They all vowed their heads in response.

_June 1831 _

Enjolras was never late. He was known for his faultless punctuality. He was, after all, the leader of Les Amis and he had to set an example. But today he was about twenty minutes late, completely unacceptable. He had stayed at the university where he was having a heated argument with one of his classmates, a supporter of Napoleon.

"Just when I thought I couldn't handle having Marius' ideas in my life," he thought as he remembered the student's arguments, all of which succumbed to Enjolras' persuasive tongue.

As he ran towards Le Café Musain, his body collided with another person, who was smaller and, naturally, fell on the floor. The street was crowded and, although he tried to help the person he had pushed, who turned out to be a girl, he wasn't able to. She stood up by herself so he could see her face perfectly. He was scared by what he saw.

The brown eyes. The brunette curls that weren't _that_ dirty anymore. That small figure clad in a worn out dress gray, a dress that was still much better than anything he had seen her with before. They were both standing in the middle of the way, gaining insults from the passersby. The girl gave him a respectful nod and continued walking. He was left there, standing like an idiot.

As that day's meeting, which started quite late and ended quickly, came to an end, Enjolras sat on a chair in the corner. His friends left commenting that there was something wrong with him. He took a sip from a bottle of wine to try and convince himself that it was a mistake. It had been almost a year since they had seen Éponine. Her permanent absent made her a martyr in an unfair system he was meant to destroy. She had become his secret Patria, his own secret fighter that fueled his cause more than ever.

And, as he thought about that, the girl from the street appeared in front of him. She was clutching something to her chest as though it was the most precious thing on earth.

"Mademoiselle Éponine?" he asked absentmindedly, his thoughts concentrating on the psychological challenge that her presence meant.

"Monsieur Enjolras," she replied.

"What...what are you doing here? Marius is already gone..." he said, wanting to slap himself for the comment. She looked at him with a frown and then just blushed.

"I didn't come to ask for Marius, monsieur," she said as she laid in front of him the two pamphlets she clutched two her chest. One of them said: "Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen" and the other one, much lighter, said: "The Declaration of the Rights of Woman and the Female Citizen". He looked at her, his eyes wide open in astonishment. That's when he saw a different light in Éponine's eyes, a especial shine. Her dove eyes now belonged to an instructed person, someone aware of her surroundings.

"I just wanted to know, monsieur, when and why did these rights disappear for us?"

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**Hey,**

**thanks for reading so far :) I hope you like it. Any clues on where Éponine**** was?**


	2. Chapter 2

"Mademoiselle Éponine...what...who...I didn't know...where did you go?" his tongue was a mess. She chuckled. He was the one blushing now. She took a seat without asking, something she had been taught not to do but had completely and deliberately ignored.

"Monsieur Enjolras, with all due respect, I asked you a question first. I would like to have an answer before moving on," she replied, playing with her hands on her lap.

"They taught you rhetorics," he mumbled to himself.

"Speaking correctly is an art on itself, Monsieur, and it still troubles me at times," she said smiling.

"Excuse me, Mademoiselle -" he said but was suddenly interrupted.

"Just call me Éponine, Monsieur. It's not like we don't know each other. I'm still the girl who sat at the staircase," she reminded him, shifting to a more comfortable position on her chair.

_You're definitely not that girl anymore, he thought. _And, in fact, Éponine had truly changed. Her olive skin, once darkened by grime and bruises, was now cleaner and healed. Her dark brown hair, always tangled, wild and dirty, was now combed in an intricate braid. The rags he remembered her wearing were now changed to a simple, long sleeved gray dress that accentuated her shape, which, although not much, seemed a bit healthier. Her intellect too had improved. However had taught her, didn't stick to teach her the obvious, but somehow managed to legate her a level of understanding that surprised him, particularly with the content of the readings she brought to him.

"Let's make a deal...Éponine," he offered.

"What deal, monsieur?" she asked.

"Just Enjolras," he corrected, "And the deal is simple: I'll tell you what you want to know if you answer my questions."

"Fine...Enjolras. But you're starting," she said, moving closer to him and offering her papers with a warm smile. Much to his astonishment, he found himself wordless. He couldn't repress a sigh, wondering what happened to his power of oratory as she took a seat just by his side.

"Is everything alright?" she asked while moving her chair a little as not to make him feel uncomfortable. Enjolras chuckled a little as he saw Olympe de Gouges' declaration of women's rights, thinking that, if she was interested in that particular fight, she would go through a rockier path than him with his revolution.

"This," he said as he brandished the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, "was written in 1789, if I'm not wrong, of course. It was and still is a fundamental pillar of the french revolution, a revolution that's not over yet. That's why I can't stop thinking about our own uprising, the final one, the restoration of the _république_."

Enjolras continued his rant, heating up every time he got into a particularly interesting point. He was very pleased to see that Éponine was an attentive listener that seemed interested in what he was saying, trying to follow his words as quickly as they left his mouth and asking questions whenever something was too hard for her to understand.

"I might have learned a couple of things, but I'm still ignorant in many others," she said apologetically as she took her declarations and clutched them back again in her chest.

"It's fine," he answered, "I must say I'm very proud to know that you learned and want to continue learning. If you want, I can continue teaching you some other things about our revolution. You can come to our meetings if you wish."

After Éponine nodding enthusiastically in response, the revolution topic was concluded for the night. There was an uncomfortable silence then. Enjolras eyed Éponine, his face resting on his left hand. She then smiled.

"Oui, now's my part of the deal." Enjolras nodded in response.

"Around this time last year, I didn't take home the amount of coins my father demanded. That same week, I had failed to bring money at least too times so I was terrified. I knew he was going to beat me. And he was going to beat me hard," she said gravely.

Although Enjolras wasn't visibly disturbed, he was deeply moved and concerned. He couldn't believe that, while he had been preaching about equality, he had underrated her, not even considering the amount of suffering she had been living. He had overlooked her and ignored her, calling her "Marius' shadow" in such a patronizing way that seemed so different from his character. He couldn't help but feel sorry, even if he knew it was a worthless feeling.

"I ran away," she continued smiling softly at him as to light up the mood, "and, as you can imagine, I had nowhere to go. That night, I slept under a bridge, not a new experience for me but still it was not the best night of my life. I spent the next day laying groggily where I slept, contemplating what I could do with my life. All of a sudden, a woman ran towards the bridge muttering curses under her breath. I realized then that it was raining.

"Madame Marguerite was an old childless widow who worked from dawn to dusk as a seamstress at a factory. She took me in without asking many questions and helped me get a job at the factory. We shared her small apartment for about a two months, in which I learned how to sew, stitch and embroider for a living. Then, the landlord told us he couldn't permit two women sleeping for the price of one and, since I only worked part-time and my wage was too low to afford staying, I was once again on the street. This time, at least, I had the certainty that I had a job."

"That's when I found them," she said affectionately, completely forgetting that she was actually telling a story.

"You found whom?" he asked curiously.

"The people that educated me."

"Who are they?"

"Enjolras, I really can't tell you everything," she said painfully, wanting to spill her secret to him. For some reason, she was really happy of making him proud. She didn't know why, but when, after many months of reading romance novels and poems, she was given philosophy books, she instantly thought about Les Amis de l'ABC. When she learned how to debate and she was taught history, she had them in her mind. When she was finally given the declarations and still many things sounded too strange for her, she decided it was time to pay them a visit. And, much to her relief, it was Enjolras and not Marius the one she longed to see.

He sighed. "Are you serious, Éponine?"

She offered him the best of her smiles. "Let's make another deal," she proposed.

"Give me permission to ask you two questions and then we can make as many deals as you want," he said with a mixture of desperation and hope.

"Shoot," she answered.

"Do you live with them?"

"I do. And since I know you're wondering whether to spend your next question on asking me where, I'll tell you right away that, although I'm not wearing rags anymore, I'm not living in the best part of town either."

The next question left his lips without him having any control over it. "What do you feel for Pontmercy now?"

After a deadly silence, it was Éponine's turn to sigh. She saw him straight in the eye, not even trying to pretend she didn't know what he meant. Of course she knew. "Last year I was a different person, a submissive girl who fell in love with the first man that treated her kindly. As I started learning, my readings would consist of love stories that I would use as base to create different lives with Monsieur Marius. But one day I read the story of Orpheus and Eurydice and realized that Monsieur Marius wouldn't die for me, that actually nobody I knew would die for me. I guess that was the end of my affections. It really hurt me to realize this but, once I did, I was truly free."

He casted a small smile at her. She stood up, realizing it was probably too late. He also stood up, offering to accompany her back home.

"Don't be silly, Enjolras, I can handle it. I might not live in a wealthy street but people are very humble and I haven't been robbed once in the time I've been there," she told him as she walked towards the stairs. He followed close behind. Once they were at the door of Le Cafe Musain, accompanied by a bunch of empty, stacked chairs and the sound of sweeping, Enjolras took her hand, wanting to kiss it but not finding the courage to do so.

She blushed and said goodbye, promising to go back the next day. Soon, they went on different ways. Éponine to the south, to the section of the city colonized by cracked buildings and complicated alleys, that section of the higher lowest class, the working class he wished to save. Enjolras, to the north, the section of the rich.

And in the back of his mind, one of Éponine's comments stick to him and he unconsciously replied.

_I would definitely die for you, my dear Patria._

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**Thanks for the nice and encouraging comments :-) I've been taking too long because I was trying to make this good enough. What do you think?**

**-Seahorse vS**


	3. Chapter 3

"Where were you, Éponine? It's quite late," a sweet but scolding voice pointed out. Éponine, who had closed the door as soft as possible and ran awkwardly to her room in order not to be seen, had to turn back to face the owner of the voice. She found an elderly woman of blonde-grayish hair stitching a skirt by the dim light of a candle. By her side, an old man, her husband, tried to read his book with the same little light. With the times being, candles were a luxury.

"I'm sorry, I was visiting a friend" she replied while clutching the naked doorframe and peeking her head to the equally empty room they were in, sitting on the boxes used on market days and stooping to reach the candlelight. Even with the partial darkness, Éponine could feel the woman's sapphire eyes leaving the stitching and fixing on her body. She drew a rejoiced expression on the woman's face.

"A friend?" the woman asked, her voice being a mixture of intrigue and hope.

"Yes. The nice part of my past," she answered, repressing a smile by chewing her lower lip.

"That Marius guy?" the woman asked, deflated. She was convinced that Éponine had let go of that delusion.

A few weeks after she was welcomed to that house, fragments of her story echoed through every room. Her family issues, the causes of her broken heart and the fact that she wasn't illiterate but lacked proper education were all discussed by the group that inhabited the house. This group was constituted by three elderly couples, an equally aged widow, a middle aged man and an orphaned girl, Éponine's age. All of them, excluding Éponine and the other girl, had been part of France's respectable society at one time or another.

Two of the elder men and the middle aged man had been university professor. The other man had owned various factories, an incendiary newspaper and a printing office. The widow, once the wife a major, owned a prominent library. The other three women had grown to the instructed beyond the social conventions of the time. But with the changing times and for different reasons, they had all been stuck by disgrace.

Destiny then joined them as they lost all of their possessions, their power, their "friends" and life as they all knew them. Soon they found themselves claiming a semi abandoned house on a humble neighborhood. It took them a lot of hard work to make it habitable. But, with hard work and each other's support, they managed to survive. They blended into the working class during the day and had deep philosophical questionings at night, discussing topics regarding the country, literature, authors and professions during the night time. And even when money was short and food was scarce, when they barely had a chair to too, there was always a book hanging around.

Musichetta, the other girl that lived in the house, arrived sometime later. At age fourteen, just when Éponine's family lost their inn at Montfermeil, she escaped from the terrible orphanage where she had grown. She was found by Amelie, the widow, during market day as she shivered in a corner. She sort of adopted by all of them, who educated her, gave her food and dressed her until she was able to work with the women at the factories.

By instructions of Madame Marguerite, the woman who had given her home for two months, Éponine knocked on their door. She wasn't very accepted at the beginning, especially since at the moment hunger was getting best of all of them. But, as they realized she was truly troubled and that she actually was willing to learn and work, she soon found them to be the family she always longed to have.

That's why, Pauline, the old woman who stitched by the candlelight, couldn't help but feel worried about her, principally because they had just been commenting on the incredible way in which she had "cured" herself from that lovesickness. When Éponine shook her head in response, she felt completely relieved.

"I'm going to see him again tomorrow," she whispered, sitting down in front of the candle and smiling at them.

"Don't you have to work tomorrow?" Pauline's husband, Francois, asked in a very cranky voice.

"Tomorrow I only work until midday. I'll see him later," she explained.

"Fine. But you're taking Musichetta with you," he said while standing up, "I don't want you to commit a mistake."

"He's just jealous," Pauline joked. Francois left after telling Pauline she should stop stitching. They both laughed softly and then blew the candle.

Éponine entered the room she shared with Musichetta. The room included a single bed and an an old and not very comfortable mattress along with a trunk in which they saved the clothing they shared. Since Éponine had arrived late, Musichetta had taken the bed and was already sleeping.

The brunette sighed as she took off her shoes. She then proceeded to take of her dress and put on a nightgown she had made with what was left of two shirts that Philipe, the middle aged former teacher, couldn't wear anymore. She unbraided her hair and jumped on the mattress, covering her body with a brown blanket.

Her last conscious thought of the day was the preoccupation of not having a topic to grab Enjolras' attention the next day.

"Are you serious Éponine?" Musichetta asked excitedly the next morning.

"Totally," she answered.

Musichetta and Éponine worked together in a nearby factory. Unlike the other four women in the house, they had two days each week in which they worked only until the middle of the day. Usually, they would both go back home, have lunch with whoever was at home at the moment and take the rest of the day to read, mess around or help with the things around the house.

They were good at embroidering so both, a long with other twenty something women, were given the job of creating delicate patterns on dresses that would later be sold all around the country or on tablecloths that decorated pompous homes. It was a tiring job and pay wasn't much but it was better than nothing and, at least, the forewoman wasn't a tyrant. The other women, though, weren't as good. That's why Éponine and Musichetta didn't have other friends.

Knowing that they were going to actually interact with other people (and that the had permission to do so) was refreshing news for Musichetta. So, at the end of the working day, she managed to convince Éponine not to go back home but to head directly to Le Café Musain, which wasn't as close anyways.

The girls arrived to Le Café Musain about thirty minutes later. Musichetta was drunk with expectation. Éponine got nervous with every step; she knew that, inside, she was going to encounter her past face to face. She dreaded the many questions that they would ask and feared that they weren't all as friendly as Enjolras had been. She entered to the café drowning those fears in a sea of security. She was a progressing woman, an educated fighter and there was nothing she needed to be ashamed of.

As Enjolras saw her from the corner of his eye, his concentration on his "Social Contract" by Jean Jacques Rousseau was completely lost. Combeferre, not noticing the two ladies that were deciding whether to go upstairs or not, witnessed with surprise how his friend had to reread at least three times the same page. The other student who was there at the time was Joly, who casually stood up only to see Éponine's figure climbing the stairs. He almost faints.

"Combeferre," he said preoccupied, "I'm having hallucinations."

"What are you saying?" Combeferre asked, not taking his eyes away from Enjolras. The young doctor to be signaled towards the stairs just as Éponine appeared. His eyes also widened.

"This isn't possible," he whispered. Enjolras stood up and walked towards Éponine. Soon there was a very awkward silence. Musichetta was waiting downstairs, the two students watched in horror and curiosity and neither Enjolras nor Éponine were able to mutter something.

"Who. Is. She?" Joly said as he was about to hyperventilate. Enjolras moved out of the way and Éponine walked towards him, grabbing his hand in an impulse.

"Monsieur Joly, I am Éponine. Do you remember me?" She talked slowly, as though she was introducing herself to a child.

"Of course we remember you! YOU WERE DEAD!" Joly answered, breathing loudly.

"No, I was not. My life changed and that's why I stopped coming here. I was busy with my job and with getting an education and I'm here again," she said sweetly. The student hugged her, more as to reassure himself that she was alive than as an affective gesture. Enjolras rolled his eyes.

"Alright Joly...we all get it," he said. The student smiled at Éponine and told her to cut the formalities. Éponine smiled, which made jealousy sting in Enjolras' heart and ego. He didn't realize this at the moment, though.

"I hope you don't mind that I brought a friend," she said, suddenly remembering Musichetta.

The girl was on the second floor as quick as her feet could take her. The first thing she saw was the brown haired student who was recovering from an almost heart attack. He smiled sweetly at her, suddenly blushing. Maybe it was the fact that she wasn't used to being around men or that she actually found herself attracted to him, but they ended up in a corner, giggling and blushing as they carried on with a conversation on medicine.

Enjolras and Combeferre, who had barely been acknowledge by Éponine's friend, sat with her on the other side of the room. Combeferre asked her a few questions about her life, which she answered briefly. Then, when he realized how Enjolras subtly showed interest on her, he excused himself, going downstairs, where he found Courfeyrac.

"Don't go upstairs," he almost ordered to the dark-haired youth.

"Why?"

"Long story short, Enjolras is flirting," he answered humorously.

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**I know there's not that much of Enjonine right now...you'll see in the future chapters. What do you think? **

**Once again, thanks for the nice comments :)**

**-Seahorse vS**


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